Under pressure from critics, the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ (APP) yesterday decided to abandon its public call for the mass murder of asylum seekers, declaring that the “previous title of this [Facebook] page “Torpedo the boats” was a sloganised [sic] version of our intent to torpedo the refugee boat policy of the federal government. Obviously, it was not a call to actually torpedo people, and anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or being deliberately obtuse.” Or, alternatively, accurately reporting their antics. The handful of public rallies previously organised by APP have failed to attract anything more than token support, and the party’s reputation is unlikely to have been improved by its latest idiocy.
There were protests at a screening of a new film praising former dictator Augusto Pinochet in Santiago on June 10. Among those gathering to pay tribute to the General were a number of neo-Nazis, like other fascists presumably grateful for the protection of a large number of riot police.
Greece
The popular vote for the neo-Nazi ‘Golden Dawn’ has remained steady for the June 17 election, though the party appears to have secured 18 as opposed to 21 seats in the new Greek parliament. The official map of the results may be found here. Attacks on immigrants, some conducted in collaboration with police, will presumably continue if not escalate under whichever new government is formed. Otherwise, appeals by the Greek franchise of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) — better known as the Spartacists — for a vote for the Greek Stalinists appears not to have moved the Greek masses in their direction, sadly, with KKE’s vote dropping to 4.5% overall.
Ireland
The latest edition of the Irish Anarchist Review (#5, Summer 2012) contains an article ‘Towards an anarchist anti-racism’, written by and for ‘a white anarchist’. Unfortunately, it’s not very useful, though it did draw my attention once again to the intriguing text ‘A few good reasons why white people should not wear ‘Mohawks’ or dreadlocks’ by C.K. Donovan & Q-L. Driskill.
Poland
Brian Whelan has written an interesting article on fascist football hooligans for VICE magazine. “Antifa fear that many members of the police and even mainstream political parties in Poland are sympathetic to the far-right. The problem is at its worst in the small city of Bialystok, near the border with Belarus, where hooligans have fallen under the influence of the neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour and police have failed to control the growing violence.”
United States
The ‘Tinley Park Five’ are a group of five men arrested and charged with attacking a White supremacist gathering in Tinley Park, a suburb of Chicago, in May. One of the alleged victims (Steven Eugene Speers) was also later arrested on child pornography charges and another (Francis John Gilroy, Jnr) for possessing a firearm (Pedophile and Fugitive Arrested at White Nationalist Gathering, ARA, May 21, 2012). Finally, my favourite Hollywood Nazi and fugitive Bill White got arrested last weekend, and looks set to spend another spell behind bars.
Reading of Jones’s recycling of an old meme — one that has been spreading via email and on various racist and right-wing Internet forums for many years now — naturally brought to mind not only Nation of Ulysses but sparked memories of Chopper, and a seminal moment in Australian television history involving Mister Jones and Mister Read.
Which, in turn, brought me to several other videos (one courtesy of MH). These I think further encapsulate Alan’s contribution to public debate in this sunburned country and as such are worthy of further reflection.
Australia holds one of the most concentrated corporatised media landscapes in the world, and in the past year we have seen the fruits born of a system that prioritises shareholder return over the needs of the community.
3CR Community Radio exists as a direct counter to corporate media and is a vital source of innovative and independent content. For 36 years 3CR Community Radio has brought you environmental, indigenous, women’s, ethnic, union, music and other community programs that you won’t find anywhere else.
3CR’s annual Radiothon runs from 4 – 17 June. The station is financially supported by our listening community. This year we are trying to raise $210,000 to cover operating costs. Buy your share of the media and invest in independence – make a tax deductible donation online at www.3cr.org.au, phone 03 9419 8377 or send a cheque or money order payable to ‘Community Radio Federation Ltd’ PO Box 1277 Collingwood 3066.
For those who’ve come across the sea
We’ve boundless plains to share
In one of the more bizarre chapters in the annals of local far-right politicking, in late May Darrin Hodges and Nicholas Hunter-Folkes — two of the leading, Sydney-based members of the NSW branch of the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ — declared on Facebook that they would be attempting to disrupt a gathering of people they described as ‘refugee lovers’ on World Refugee Day (Saturday, June 23). Bad enough, perhaps, that the pair and their handful of supporters might try to spoil an otherwise innocuous party. But Darrin and Nicholas decided to add further insult by declaring that, not only would they oppose attempts to welcome refugees to Australia, they would do so by organising a counter-rally, one which would publicly demand that the Australian government ‘Torpedo the boats’ upon which some asylum seekers have attempted to enter the country.
As well as possibly being contrary to state and federal laws regarding racial and religious vilification, this public demand for the mass murder of numerous men, women and children naturally attracted to the Facebook event page a range of quite sordid discussion regarding the allegedly sub-human characteristics of those seeking asylum in Australia, supplemented by dark mutterings regarding the traitorous elements deemed responsible for allowing some small fraction of refugees to find asylum on our shores. In the name of the APP, Darrin and Nicholas appealed to Facebook users to:
…come out in support of your future, your children’s future and your country and send the message to the refo huggers, Labor and the other socialist s-bend intellectuals, hand-wringers and assorted bed-wetters, that we don’t want their pets in our country:
TORPEDO THE BOATS!
Such brazen appeals to the murderous hatred some sociopaths feel for asylum seekers is rather disturbing if taken seriously, and so I was somewhat surprised to learn that Darrin and Nicholas claimed that the rally had actually been endorsed by their party. Oddly, the party’s official website [http://www.protectionist.net/], which is routinely used to publicise the party and its activities, contains no reference to the event. So I thought it would be wise to put it to the party via another mechanism: Twitter. The first response I received (June 9) denied that the party endorsed the rally:
@slackbastard 1. NOYB 2. Not an official APP event, but as if they mean that. Try torpedoing Gillard’s ridiculous policies.
— Aust. Protectionists (@AustProtParty) June 9, 2012
Perplexed — after all, both claims (the rally has been endorsed by the APP/the rally has not been endorsed by the APP) could not be correct — I again asked Darrin if the ‘Torpedo The Boats’ rally had received his party’s support, adding that I’d received a denial via the party’s Twitter account. Again, Darrin replied in the affirmative. And so I again put it to the party that somebody was lying. The response I received (June 13) again contradicted Darrin, the party denying any official endorsement.
@slackbastard 1. No, we don’t. 2. That’s our business. 3. Andrew Phillips does not tweet.
— Aust. Protectionists (@AustProtParty) June 13, 2012
Apart from having clarified the fact that, while APP National Chairman Andrew Phillips endorses the contents of a Twitter account he does not in fact read, the back-and-forth between the party and its two leading members suggests that the APP is in reality divided on the subject of the mass murder of asylum seekers. Further, that the possibility of anybody taking the party seriously is almost zero while it maintains such a bizarre and frankly psychotic public image. Finally, that while Darrin’s political career first came to the attention of the public via his participation in White supremacist forum Stormfront, it’s fitting that it should end, at least for the time being, in further appeals for political violence. Over six years ago, following the Cronulla riots, Joe Hildebrand (White supremacists casting a black cloud’, The Daily Telegraph, December 20, 2005) wrote:
Via a series of electronic footprints, anti-Nazi campaigner Mat Henderson-Hau has linked [Stormfront user] “Infidel” to Engadine local Darrin Hodges.
Hodges, who runs a website for a sex toy distributor, yesterday admitted to being a member of the racist Australia First Party but denied being a member of any white nationalist groups or a contributor to Stormfront.
His alleged alter ego is not so shy.
“Friends, today was an historic day, the day Australians stood up against state-imposed multiculturalism,” he wrote on the night of the Cronulla riots.
Accompanying his posting is a series of photographs he took at Cronulla that day, including one of a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “wog free zone” and another of a sign offering free sausages to the crowd, with “no tabouli”.
Infidel also speaks of footage he filmed on the day which Henderson-Hau believes was used in a video released over the weekend that glorifies a mob of rioters bashing various non-whites at Cronulla.
Posted on Saturday, it had been downloaded around 400 times by yesterday afternoon.
It follows an earlier video credited to “White Nationalist TV” and dubbed “The Battle For Cronulla”, which was released on the Stormfront website on the night of the riots and has since been downloaded 1700 times.
After several minutes of footage showing skinheads emblazoned with the iron cross and three-bladed swastika taking part in the Cronulla “gathering”, the video finishes with the words “Not white, not welcome in Cronulla”.
If there was any doubt as to what Infidel and his ilk stand for, consider one of his earlier posts on Stormfront in which he states: “I’m more interested in the purer form of fascism… and while I don’t subscribe to the whole ‘worship Hitler’ thing, his comments on multiculturalism and politics in general are still just as relevant today as they were 70-odd years ago.”
Further Update (June 13): On Facebook, rally organiser Darrin Hodges claims that the event is officially endorsed by the APP, making its National Chairman, Andrew Phillips, a liar (below).
Update: The APP has denied endorsing Darrin and Nicholas’ protest, as well as the effects of torpedoing boats.
@slackbastard 1. NOYB 2. Not an official APP event, but as if they mean that. Try torpedoing Gillard’s ridiculous policies.
— Aust. Protectionists (@AustProtParty) June 9, 2012
LOL.
Credit where it’s due: the two leading members of the Sydney-based ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ — Darrin Hodges and Nicholas Hunter-Folkes — have seized upon one of the latest controversies surrounding “Smugglers’ Paradise – Australia” and declared that on Saturday, June 23, they’ll be rallying Australians to demand that the government
The dynamic duo’s publicity stunt feeds on the publicity stunt spearheaded by ‘Mission Australia’, which has declared June 23 to be a Day upon which Australians should assemble and declare ‘Welcome to Australia’. Their Mission in this instance is
Formed by disgruntled former Australia First party members, disillusioned Tories and those seeking to emulate the once-successful BNP, the microscopic forces of the APP have two main selling points: hatred of Muslims and hatred of refugees. Included among its recruits (of which, at least on paper, there are over 500) is Joel Buckley. Joel is (or was) a very proud member of the Australian Navy, and would presumably be appointed captain of whichever Acheron-class torpedo boat the Australian government assigns the APP should its campaign succeed. Also certain to be there on The Day is Martin Fletcher, whose re-publication of the video game Muslim Massacre and the board game Cronulla 2230 (as well as Nazi cartoons) was indeed memorable but since supplemented by Darrin Hodge’s Refo Invaders.
Silly games aside, since its establishment in 2007, the APP’s success has been severely limited, partly because of the calibre of their cadre, mostly because xenophobia is an over-saturated market. Thus voting tallies have been feeble and public support minimal. Where the APP have been able to assemble more than a handful of (radically inarticulate) dissidents, it’s been because of a temporary alliance with similarly microscopic groups such as the quasi-mythical ‘Australian Defence League’. In summary, I haven’t been paying much attention to the antics of the APP of late: they’re non-existent in Melbourne, and elsewhere there’s been little activity of real interest to comment on. (Well, until now.) That said, the observations I made about them (and their rivals in AF) back in February still seem accurate, and unless a local mentalist commits an atrocity, I can’t see much changing.
In any event, the Facebook page promoting the mass murder of asylum seekers is Troll City, so as Rambo might say, go for it.
Members of the ‘Australian Education Union’ (AEU) are going on a 24-hour strike tomorrow (Thursday, June 9) and taking an excursion to the city. The strike’s been triggered by the failure of the Victorian state government (boo! hiss!) to agree to a 30% wage increase for teachers, instead offering a mere 2.5% increase (yadda yadda yadda) — despite (gasp!) the Premiers’ apparent promise to make Victorian teachers ‘the best paid in the country’ (yadda yadda yadda) at the previous state election (a promise broken in March 2011).
Note that the premier’s decision proves that he does indeed stand for something.
The AEU — which is affiliated to the ALP — hasn’t been on strike in Victoria for some years, but in the last few it did manage to funnel many hundreds of thousands of dollars to the now-collapsed private recruitment agency WorkPartners. Fingers xed, the huge numbers of teachers recruited by WP will help to swell the masses of those who rally at Rod Laver Arena at 9.30am and Parliament at noon. In any case, the strike has been given overwhelming support by members: of the 28,605 employees declared eligible to vote by Fair Work Australia (FWA), almost 17,000 did so, of whom just under 16,000 voted ‘yes’ to taking “protected industrial action” in support of reaching an agreement with the government. Students at Melbourne Grammar won’t be affected by the action, however, so I’m not convinced the premier will be unduly worried by the Marxist rabble briefly taking to the streets.
On Saturday, June 11, supporters of Domino’s Pizza drivers will be picketing the Domino’s outlet @ 555 Flinders Street in the city from 7pm. The picket is in support of driver’s attempts to have their wages re-instated after the company slashed them by 19% earlier in the year. Why? Seemingly, on the basis that workers in other countries get paid less for performing the same task: a case study in the rhetoric (if not the reality) of what’s sometimes termed the global race to the bottom.
That, and because they could.
Word on the virtual street is that a date may soon be set for a hearing into the case at FWA; Domino’s management have asked FWA for a six-month extension. Domino’s drivers are represented in an agreement with the company by Australia’s biggest, bestest and (arguably) least competent union, the ‘Shop Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association’ (SDA). The Shoppies have been fighting tooth-and-nail for the interests of Domino’s drivers since 2001, when the workers were delivered holus bolus to the SDA from its rivals in the ‘Transport Workers’ Union’. In other words, the agreement has (apparently) not been re-negotiated since 2003/4, and the SDA was forced into applying for a termination of the agreement only a few weeks ago… What happens next will be interesting to see.
Heavy metal band Vomitor, playing at the Evil Invaders Festival this weekend, have issued a statement denouncing racism, fascism and neo-Nazism. You can read more about that here. My reference (since removed) to the band in a previous post drew quite a lot of attention, especially from fans, and there’s a ding-dong battle going on in the commentary as a result. Among the many gems on offer is the following (from an obviously disgruntled reader): “I can see from the links to communist organisations here that you support mass murder, cultural destruction, enslavement, and a police state… Craven drivel from a brainwashed turkey fucker.”
On a related note, Jack/Gareth Sansom’s neo-Nazi promotion ‘White Noise Productions’ (WNP) seems to have disappeared and/or collapsed into his other projects (Waffenbrüder/War Doctrine) but retains the loyalty of at least one band, Perseverance (in which Jack also plays). For what it’s worth, I reckon they oughta do a split with Spear of Longinus or StarGazer or some shit. In any case, Gareth once thanked me for publicising his promotion, but I have a feeling Jack disagreed.
*shrugs*
Russia
Oh yeah. Speaking of Blood & Honour, it’s apparently been BANNED! in Russia (RAPSI) under laws prohibiting ‘extremism’. In practice, such laws are more generally used to repress critics of the Russian plutocracy. Also facing repression are Russian anti-fascists, and a call has been made for common days of actions in support of Alexey Olesinov, Alexey Sutuga ‘and all repressed antifascists’ from July 10–17.
Greece
In the birthplace of democracy, Golden Dawn have seemingly been quite active on the streets since their electoral success last month (May 6), working closely with Greek police in targeting immigrant communities. Inter alia, the group’s sudden rise in popularity has meant that Marcos is now a Greek Jew…
Neo-Nazi votes spur memories of Greece’s Holocaust
Roland Lloyd Parry (AFP)
May 31, 2012
ATHENS — Isaac Mizan, a Greek Jew, remembers seeing the flames of the furnaces. It was 1944, and the Nazis were burning bodies in the Auschwitz death camp.
The 16-year-old boy had been deported by train from his home town of Arta in western Greece, along with his parents and three sisters. Of those five, he only saw one sister again.
In Greece, few people talk about what happened to its tens of thousands of Jews in the years after 1941, when the Germans invaded and crushed the Greek and allied resistance.
Now the rise of a Greek neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, which won its first seats in parliament this month, has driven Jews here to speak out about their ordeal in World War II as a reminder.
“I lost sleep when I saw they got into parliament,” Mizan, now 85, told AFP.
A television interview by the party’s leader Nikos Mihaloliakos, in which he played down the extent of the Holocaust, prompted a rare public appearance on Tuesday by some of the very few Greek survivors.
Some 400 people crammed into a lecture hall at Athens University to hear Mizan and four other elderly survivors talk about their lives during the Nazi killings and deportations that almost wiped out Greece’s Jewish population.
“I remember seeing the flames of the crematoriums,” Mizan said.
“They would also throw people alive into lakes.”
The subject of the Holocaust in Greece only recently started being mentioned in school history books.
Four years of recession have raised anti-immigrant tension in some districts, fuelling Golden Dawn’s rise, but some also say a blindness to parts of history is to blame.
“It’s a small part of our book,” said Manos Roditakis, 20, a maths student at the university.
“It’s mentioned that there was a Holocaust in all of Europe and Greece too, but they don’t focus much on that,” he said.
“The focus is on the Greek resistance against the Germans and on the Battle of Crete and things like that,” he said, referring to the climax of the Nazi conquest in 1941.
In a televised interview this month, Mihaloliakos denied the existence of gas chambers in the Nazi death camps and suggested that to say six million Jews died in the Holocaust was an exaggeration.
“There were no ovens, no gas chambers, it’s a lie,” he insisted in the interview.
He said he had “read lots of books casting doubt on the number of six million Jews” who died in the Holocaust.
“Auschwitz, what Auschwitz? I didn’t go there. What happened there? Have you been there?” he asked.
At Tuesday’s event, Mizan rolled up the left sleeve of his suit to reveal the number the Nazis tattooed on his forearm in black ink at Auschwitz: 182641.
Of the five survivors at Tuesday’s event, he was the only one who went through the camps. The others managed to stay in Greece, hiding with the help of their countrymen.
Before World War II, a Jewish community had flourished for centuries in Greece, mainly around the northern city of Thessaloniki.
Jews in Greece are now estimated to number about 6,000. Since the war their presence has been scarcely visible, their story seldom told.
“This was the first time in Greece that such a big event took place, in terms of the audience, with young people and non-Jews, who came without being obliged to,” said Isaac Mizan’s son, Zozef.
Another Greek Holocaust survivor, Alexandros Simha, added: “There is a silence, an indifference among people in Greece. But now they are starting to dig a little into their past.”
Golden Dawn won 6.9 percent of the vote and 21 seats in the 300-member parliament in an inconclusive election on May 6.
“We are coming,” Michaloliakos said afterwards. “The time for fear has come for those who betrayed this homeland.”
A new election is scheduled on June 17. Opinion polls indicate Golden Dawn could see a dip in support but may still retain its presence in parliament.
Tuesday’s event was organised by Hagen Fleischer, a German history professor at Athens University, as a riposte to Mihaloliakos’s comments playing down the horror of the Holocaust.
“We must not forget the Holocaust”, said Simha.
“The serpent’s egg is still there, ready to hatch.”
Germany
Over the weekend (June 2), several thousand German police were enlisted to allow several hundred angry German Hamburgers to march thru the city. Police have protecting the nazis down to a fine art; a science, even. Liverpool Antifascists can has a collection of film clips here.
United States
Bill White, My Favourite Hollywood Nazi — who was totally an anarchist at one point in his career — has apparently disappeared. Well, if not in a puff of smoke then at least as far as ZOG is concerned. Where will Bill’s crazy antics take him next? Bill’s comrade JT Ready ended his career in spectacular fashion last month, “All four people killed by a former neo-Nazi before he turned the gun on himself this month in a quiet Phoenix suburb were shot in the head, according to a police report released Tuesday that paints the clearest picture yet of the gruesome crime scene”. In Florida, the alleged plans of cheeky members of bonehead gang American Front to smash local skinheads apparently hasn’t deterred local RASH members and supporters from doing their thing, “When asked if they were concerned about the American Front members being out of jail and on bail for the moment, both John Brown and Krist Cooper said they will carry on with their regular social nights and concerts, but with the added precaution of increased security”.
Loophole Community Centre — “an umbrella organisation providing a home to a wide array of arts and humanities projects” — appears to be on the verge of closing. Well, perhaps only at its current location (670–672 High St, Northcote), having been served an eviction notice for June 11. As a result, Loophole is asking for halp:
LOOPHOLE NEEDS A PLACE TO MOVE INTO, so if you know of any empty spaces with a kind, reasonable and community spirited owner, especially if you are that owner, please contact us.
We are looking ASAP for an aspiring film-maker to shoot a documentary while these few weeks unfold.
In the interim, we are in dire need of STORAGE SPACES to temporarily house components of the centre (eg bike workshop, library, etc)
ALTERNATE SPACES where user groups can temporarily relocate, eg Food Not Bombs, Rad Play Group, Rad Choir, Sew Radical etc
Donations of HANDS and hearts to help with all aspects of MOVING
MONEY, stop in or donate online. Moving is expensive.
WRITE A LETTER, SIGN PETITION AND GET ON THE PHONE
COME TO OUR EXHIBITION on June 8th, buy rad art, get inspired and keep our Loophole open.
DROP IN, stop by, show us some love…
Thanks and blessings to all our volunteers, patrons and everyone who has supported and continues to support Loophole over the years. You made our community centre a castle.
The impetuosity of youth can lend itself to an over-zealous desire to shock and offend for what end up being all the wrong reasons. To be categorical we are not in any way, shape or form racist/fascist/Nazi in thinking or action.
Vomitor were scheduled to play the ‘extreme metal’ festival in Sydney on June 9 but appear to have been withdrawn from the line-up since I made reference to them in a previous post (since amended). I may return to the topic in a future post, but in the absence of any other infos, I think the band should now be taken at their word. Finally, in case there was any confusion on this point, I do not claim that Evil Invaders is a ‘racist’ event or that its organisers in any way support racism; my apologies if any material on my blog was given any other interpretation.
Among the 21 Golden Dawn candidates bumped into the Greek Parliament Last Thursday is ‘Kaiadas’ (Giorgos Germenis when he’s at home), bass player for Naer Mataron.
Germenis’ success gots me thinking: could there be room for local NSBM practitioners in the Australian Parliament?
Still, if not the national parliament, why not local council?
The nearest political equivalent to GD in Australia is the Australia First Party. Admittedly, members of AF are more likely to be found wearing cardigans than they are leather jackets, but they do have a yoof wing: the Eureka League. And OK, the yoof wing leader is a middle-aged fella named Brendan Gidley, and yes, in its previous incarnation (the Patriotik Yoof Laegue), its leader was another middle-aged bloke named John Drew…
But still.
AF had its own Golden moment back in November 2006, when Bruce Preece was elected to local council in Adelaide. Preece appears to have exited the party not long after being elected, and has had his own share of problems since, but his triumph does provide evidence that a White nationalist can indeed win an electoral contest. Further, Peter Schuback recently (April 28) came third of four candidates aiming for a seat in Division 8 of the Fraser Coast Region in Queensland, scoring 1,002 votes or 19.11%.
Sadly, Schuback seems more interested in truck-driving than guitar-shredding.
Who then might AF attract to join its NSBM division?
Gareth/Jack Sansom
One obvious potential candidate is Melbourne metalhead Gareth/Jack Sansom. Sansom (as ‘Hyperborean’) plays bass for Waffenbrüder; more often he can be found shouting for Perseverance. Perseverance released its album on Sansom’s neo-Nazi White Noise label, while Waffenbrüder released its album via Sansom’s local neo-Nazi distro War Doctrine.
According to the band (in an interview with a Greek nazi zine), the name Waffenbrüder “was chosen to convey our ultimate purpose; armed insurrection”. Personally, I don’t think that the boys’ phantasy of national socialist revolution should exclude Sansom from a place on, say, Boroondara Council, especially given that, in the case of GD, a desire to ethnically cleanse the country of non-Greeks doesn’t mean that they haven’t a rightful place in the nation’s parliament.
With scores level and less than two minutes remaining, Collingwood’s Alex Fasolo marked on the wing and was handed a 50-metre penalty after he shaped to play on and was tackled by Josh Hunt.
“I knew Josh Hunt grabbed me and I just milked [the penalty] for all it was worth … I hope it was there,” Fasolo laughingly told Grandstand.
“Obviously [got a] 50-metre penalty and all the boys got around me … so I just went back and slotted it and gave it a fist and … come on the Mags.”
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
